Everything You Need
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: Casey's words take on a double meaning and Sarah evaluates her life and her future, or lack thereof, with Chuck.


**Title: **Everything You Need**  
Author: **Cassandra Mulder**  
Rating: **PG**  
Classification: **_Chuck_; Chuck/Sarah; angst**  
Spoilers: **_Chuck vs. The Suburbs_**  
Disclaimer: **I don't own it. Do I look like I own it? I really don't. No infringement is intended, so please don't sue.**  
Summary: **Casey's words take on a double meaning and Sarah evaluates her life and her future, or lack thereof, with Chuck.**  
Written: **February 17, 2009**  
Word Count: **1051**  
Author's Notes: **This literally crept up on me like a superspy and knocked me over the head approximately ten seconds after finishing the episode last night. The dangers of owning a brand new laptop and having it on the bed beside you is you will stay up way too late analyzing Sarah's brain and be tired at work all day the next day. As much as I (don't) write these days, though, it was totally worth it. This is my first _Chuck_ fic - go easy. :) Feedback, however, is totally love.

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"You get everything you need?" Casey asked, and even though she responded in the positive, the irony didn't escape her.

As long as the CIA owned her, as long as she was a slave to the job, she would never have everything she needed. She knew that now.

When she had joined the company nothing else had mattered. The only focus she had was using the con skills her deadbeat father had taught her for something worthwhile; for the so-called greater good. She didn't want to be like him, to live in his world anymore. She wanted a purpose, something that would help her make sense of her life and the past she was always trying desperately to leave behind.

Chuck had ruined everything. He took a dedicated, single-minded, detached agent and turned her into someone she didn't recognize anymore. Her job was to put her life on the line to save his, but it was no longer just a job. He wasn't just an asset, and even though she found herself delivering the hard line on the boundaries of their relationship, it wasn't because she wanted to. She had no choice - if she was going to keep them both safe, she had to.

They were both well aware of what was going on underneath the surface, and it killed her to pull back every time. Chuck didn't deserve it, and she was beginning to realize neither did she. But she had made her choice several years ago, and she didn't see any way out. Even if they figured out a way to safely remove the Intersect from Chuck's brain, it wouldn't make any difference. She would receive a new assignment for a new mission somewhere thousands of miles away, and she would never be allowed to see him again.

Sometimes she didn't think that would be the worst thing that could happen, and other times she couldn't stand the thought at all.

She didn't even know how he had done it, but he had her. He was everything she had been trained to believe didn't exist in the world anymore; kind, caring, sincere. He was a genuinely good and decent man, and even though his predicament had been no fault of her own, she was still angry it had happened at all. Bryce Larkin was bad news no matter how you looked at him, and part of her wished she had known Chuck beforehand so she could have warned him.

Even though she had been involved with Bryce, it hadn't been the same. She had thought she loved him, but it was never a real relationship to start with. Their affair had been fueled by adrenaline and the mission and plenty of lust, but not much else. It had been forbidden, and that was most of the excitement outside of the breaking and entering and gun battles. He wasn't someone she could ever really talk to or be herself with, or just hang out on the couch and watch ridiculous movies in comfortable silence. She had never met his family, if he had any, and he never talked about loving anything except the job.

With Chuck she always seemed to be playing someone else, but she didn't have to be. In the rare moments they weren't being sent off to their imminent death, she almost felt normal, whatever that was. She had never had normal under any circumstances, but she was almost certain she had it with him. At least, until she let him down for the hundredth time and then he was mopey and things were awkward and she felt she had lost him again.

There was just no easy answer. She didn't know how to be a civilian and he didn't really know how to be a spy, so what kind of life was that?

She was beginning to wonder.

Cooking breakfast for him in her nightie had felt a little too right. In fact, if he hadn't acted so totally shocked about the whole thing, it would have felt _completely _right.

She supposed it didn't matter anymore. He had essentially asked something of her again, and she had put him in his place. Sooner or later even he would get fed up and just accept that they were what they were - and who they were. They were merely two people who had to put aside what they wanted for what the world needed, and what the world didn't need was a national security crisis. They would survive having to be apart, but the world wouldn't survive Fulcrum if they won.

It didn't make it easier to live with or accept, but they both knew the score. If they lost sight of that for one second, and many times they almost had, it would all be over.

Love, though she would never, ever admit to herself or anyone else that was what it was, would always have to take a backseat in her life, but she hoped it didn't have to be that way for him. One day soon, she hoped, all of this would be over and he could have his life and his dreams and someone that could actually love him and take care of him. Maybe not the same way she had taken care of him, but in all the ways that were important to someone like him.

What she wanted for him were all the things she wanted to but couldn't give him; the things she saw when she looked into his eyes. She tried to convey her desires in the same way to him, but it only made things worse. He would plead silently, then the disappointment would settle in and he would shut down entirely. He understood her reasons, but at the same time he didn't and that's what killed her.

She walked out the door of the perfect house that belonged in a perfect life, and shut it behind her. These things would never truly be hers, not with Chuck, not with anyone else, and she needed to find her footing in that aspect of her life again. No time had ever been more crucial, and if she was going to keep him alive she needed to have her head on straight.

Nothing else mattered, no matter what she needed.

Finis


End file.
